Whoever wins the General Election there will be a meltdown in public finances and the £11bn cuts to public services announced in last week's budget is the tip of the iceberg.
Public sector HR chiefs need to get to grips with this issue now, and that was the message at last week's meeting up public sector HR group the PPMA.
The evidence is that public sector organisations are becoming less efficient. Statistics from the Office of National Statistics show productivity has fallen since Labour came to power in 1997.
One way to improve efficiency is to remodel how the HR service is delivered. The Local Government Association (LGA) last week urged councils to expand of HR shared services to boost efficiency and cut costs, and there are examples of HR teams taking a lead on this.
But HR must go beyond reforming HR service delivery and take a leading role in the root and branch reform of budgets and services inevitable during the next three years.
The profession must develop credible performance measures on absence and productivity, and share good practice on leadership and organisational design. They must link pay to performance in unionised environments while battle fronts are opening over redundancy terms and job cuts.
It isn't going to be easy but there is no alternative.
Public sector HR chiefs need to get to grips with this issue now, and that was the message at last week's meeting up public sector HR group the PPMA.
The evidence is that public sector organisations are becoming less efficient. Statistics from the Office of National Statistics show productivity has fallen since Labour came to power in 1997.
One way to improve efficiency is to remodel how the HR service is delivered. The Local Government Association (LGA) last week urged councils to expand of HR shared services to boost efficiency and cut costs, and there are examples of HR teams taking a lead on this.
But HR must go beyond reforming HR service delivery and take a leading role in the root and branch reform of budgets and services inevitable during the next three years.
The profession must develop credible performance measures on absence and productivity, and share good practice on leadership and organisational design. They must link pay to performance in unionised environments while battle fronts are opening over redundancy terms and job cuts.
It isn't going to be easy but there is no alternative.
